Lake George Mayor Bob Blais the longest-serving mayor in New York State. At the end of his term in April 2023, Blais will have served as mayor for 52 years.
WAMC's Lucas Willard caught up with Blais this week at village hall to speak about his plans for retirement and other issues facing the small resort community.
Bob Blais:
I just think it's the right time, in the right place, with the right person to turn the reins over to someone else. I want to at least enjoy what time I've got left with my family and my children are dispersed throughout the United States. I want to be able to visit them and I think, again, that hopefully people think that we're leaving the village in a lot better place than we found it. And when people ask me, ‘Well, why did why have you been 52 years,’ I always tell people, it just takes me a little longer to get things done than the average politician. But we like to think when we get it done, that we've done it right.
Lucas Willard:
I remember sitting down with you when you had your book that you were putting together about the village come out. And I think we talked a lot about how the village had changed from when you became mayor as a young man to now. That was over 40 years, now it's 50 years later.
Bob Blais:
Right. Well, it was, it was in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was elected, the village was pretty much known as a place for ‘rowdyism.’ And we had the so called riots, and weekends with the college students. And of course, the drinking age was 18. You could drink in the streets and anywhere you wanted to at that time. So it was kind of a much different place. It was it was a family resort then. But the families tended to stay away from the large holiday weekends when they knew the young people would pretty much take over. We had a lot more nightclubs then now, on the east side. The east side alone had seven nightclubs, and they're all gone now. So a lot has changed. And sure enough, it should have in 52 years. But we've you know, recently in the last 10 years, we've been cited in several national magazines, Travel and Leisure and Time Magazine, Money Magazine as one of the top 10 family resorts in the country. 10 of the most one of the 10 most beautiful lakes. We're proud of all that. And we think that some of the things that we've done here in the village, in particular, has contributed to that as well.
Lucas Willard:
I just came back from the ice castle that I was touring. That's under construction right now and it's opening this weekend. But I think that's a great example of a year round attraction.
Bob Blais :
Yeah. That was one of our major incentives when we took over to try to make Lake GA year round destination. And it just so happens that with the Wood park was controversial. Would we have enough events to fill a new festival space in Lake George, should we build a convention center there? Should it be an outdoors festival area? And lo and behold, we never envisioned having an attraction like Ice Castles USA come to Lake George and erect one of their magnificent attractions. So we believe that it's a game changer for Lake George. We believe that if he's successful this year, and signs a contract to come back again in the future, that it will certainly turn all the lights on in Lake George Village. There's certainly a lot on more now than there were five years ago or 10 years ago. But instead of being a summer resort, we're going to be known as a year round destination.
Lucas Willard:
The town and the village of Lake George at the end of last year voted to opt out of retail marijuana sales. What's the reasoning, do you support that, and why go that direction?
Bob Blais:
Well, I support it for a number of reasons. Number one, I think that it's premature, that the state still has to get their act together. There's still rules and regulations that they're going to promulgate I'm sure, or suggest in the legislature. We'd like to see what reaction that has in other communities surrounding us that have approved it. And we had a great swell of local support to not do it, because they were concerned about our image as a family resort. That remains to be seen whether something like that will affect our image greatly or not. But I think it's wise, the communities that waited, we're waiting to see what's going to happen. You know, we all wondered when the state came up with the New York State Lottery. They told us that that was going to solve our problem with school taxes. That hasn't happened. And there's so many other things that the state has levied passed down to local governments that they said was going to happen and has not happened. So I think the wait and see attitude, particularly on a question as important as that was the proper thing to do.
Lucas Willard:
So you're the longest serving mayor, you could also be the last mayor, I understand. Well, the village next week is going to consider hiring a firm to study the dissolution of the village, correct?
Bob Blais:
Yes, the study of dissolution is something that the state has been recognizing as beneficial to villages across the state. They're actually giving us funding, 50 percent funding to do the studies, the village has studied the questions three times in the past, it has never been put to a vote. This time, the village board has passed a resolution requiring that the matter be put to a vote at the end of the study. And we'll begin the study sometime hopefully in May, or perhaps as early as April, and hopefully have an election or a vote sometime this fall. Certainly if the people in the village decide that they want the village to dissolve, I want to be here to take part in the plan. And the negotiations with the Town of Lake George. Because this is going to be probably the most important vote that's ever taken place in our village. And I think the study will bear out the fact that we're not the typical village in New York state. Our budget, for instance, is higher than the town's. That's highly unusual in any of the past studies that we've had. So we're going to explore a lot of other things that could take place. And in fact, in Lake George, it's highly unusual, because the town and village now share a tremendous amount of services, which is not usual between towns and villages. So if I had to predict what might happen, I would say probably at the end, it'll bear out that the village of Lake George is fine the way we are. And the town of Lake George perhaps is fine the way they are. And we can go on as long as we continue to share services with each other that that saves a tremendous amount of money for both taxpayers.
Lucas Willard:
And if you've never been here before, I mean, the town offices are right across the parking lot.
Bob Blais:
Correct. So I know there's…talk about sharing. When the village built a new firehouse and wanted to give the firemen all of the room that we had before the village went looking for a place to build the village hall, the town gave us a portion of property that they already had for $1 a year and now we have our offices next to each other. But we also share the fire department, the rescue squad, the courts, we share the sewage treatment plant. We share the collection systems. We share code enforcement we share Planning Officers, we share almost every service that you can name in the village in the town with the exception of the highway and street departments, we share the services together
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
